Scott Green

The Chicago Tribune reported Friday that hundreds of unqualified students are admitted to the University every year because of a secret political “clout list.”  In other words, for the first time, we have some clue how admissions decisions are made.

This is good.  High school students now know that if they work hard and stay focused, they can make enough money to pay their state reps to blackmail the University into admission letters.

When I was in high school (1845-1849) I was told it took good grades and top tier test scores to get into college.  By the end of junior year I had straight A’s and a near-perfect ACT.  So naturally, when I applied to Champaign the next fall, I was rejected.

Ultimately I appealed – without anyone’s help except my uncle Roland Burris’s – and 14 days later was admitted.  Maybe a state rep could’ve gotten it done in seven.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that a couple weeks after I was admitted, I received a letter from the University – I swear this is true – congratulating me for being named a James Scholar.

So I wouldn’t eat in the admissions building cafeteria if I were pregnant or nursing.  But it’s hard to get mad at the University for admitting unqualified students at politicians’ requests when hundreds of other unqualified students are admitted without such help.

Everyone on campus has seen this firsthand.  I was in a fraternity with a large number of terrible students, many of whom bragged about getting into the University despite lousy grades and test scores.  Some wound up dropping out of college.  And I’m certain none used political clout to get admitted, because with those kinds of connections they would’ve been in a much better fraternity.

Unfortunately the alternative to clout-based admissions might be worse.  Some schools assign “points” for applicants based on specific factors.  The University of Michigan uses such a system, which includes the following values:  25 points for a 4.0 GPA; 50 points for knowing the Oscar Mayer hot dog song; 4,000 points for being a minority; 4,000 points for claiming to be a minority on the application despite being white; 10 points for a perfect SAT; etc.

Here it’s more streamlined, in the form of a two-part test.  Part one:  do you have an important political or University figure in your corner?  If not, you go to part two:  your application is placed in front of Murray the Wonder Cat, and if he eats it, you’re in.   (The University’s public relations office didn’t deny this is the actual system, possibly because I didn’t ask.)

Otherwise you get rejected and have to go to your safety school, which is an embarrassing indignity for any high school senior, and twice as bad if the safety school is Indiana.

So we owe a big “thank you” to the Tribune for helping make public our only objective admissions standard.  But shame on them, also, because Friday’s edition made Murray sick all weekend.